City has new vision for Otsego Avenue

December 20, 2000|By PETER COMINGS

Staff Writer

GAYLORD - Two applications from the city manager's office went out early last week to the Michigan Dept. of Transportation (MDOT) in hopes of tapping into the Michigan Transportation Enhancement Fund to improve the city's transportation network. The local match to the $93,000 in state money, not all of which would even come from the city, totals $47,000.

The grant money would make a big difference to Gaylord's attempts at making the city more pedestrian and vehicle friendly. City Manager Joseph Duff just has to wait until next July at the earliest to see if MDOT smiles down in agreement.

The larger of the two grants, equaling $90,000 with its match, is for the construction of a .7-mile nonmotorized pathway along North Ohio Street and Fairview Road. The city was turned down in a $100,000-application to the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) earlier this year. Duff said chances were better with the MDOT grant, thanks to refined cost estimates and an application category specifically designed for functional, rather than purely recreational, pathways.

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"The DNR grant was more tied to recreational pathways," said Duff, "similar to those we're building at Aspen Park. The criteria which they (MDOT) have is much more project-specific. Nonmotorized pathways are something they do fund."

If the city is successful in August, Duff hinted construction could begin right away, with an outside chance of getting it done before next winter.

The .7-mile tract is part of a larger 40-mile plan proposed for the Gaylord Community Pathways in Otsego Lake, Livingston and Bagley townships, which will eventually connect Otsego Lake, Gaylord High School, residential areas and downtown shopping destinations.

To make those shopping areas more pedestrian-friendly, the city has also applied for a $50,000-grant (including match) they intend to use in the formative stages of a plan to develop a Streetscape and master plan for Old 27 and portions of Main Street east of the railroad tracks. The main goal, sketched out in the grant application, follows the example set in the county's corridor study - limiting access points onto highways and managing traffic.

Of the local $20,000-match, $10,000 would come from MDOT's Grayling Transportation Service Center. The remaining amount would be taken from the city's general fund. Everything, again, hinges on MDOT's awarding of funds.

"We want to make a safer roadway and we're concerned with pedestrian traffic down there," said Duff. "We'd like to get more pedestrian traffic down there instead of vehicles."

Tentative beautification plans include street lighting similar to the decorative lights in the Downtown Development Authority Streetscape areas, planting trees, and burying utility lines. Each of those was addressed in the corridor study as a way to calm drivers and slow traffic.

Equally important are the safety measures being considered: eliminating outlets onto the I-75 Business Loop by providing combined access to frontage roads or driveways and adding a raised grass median in place of the center turn lane to which local drivers have become accustomed to using as a merging lane.

"If you notice on the roadway as it exists right now it's a very wide roadway," Duff said. "All that area would be re-looked at. I think there's adequate room. And according to our engineers they think so to."

An annual average daily traffic count - an average of daily traffic taken over an entire year - conducted for the corridor study indicated typical daily volumes of 16,422 vehicles on the road. The DOT just finished a traffic count at the intersection of Commerce Boulevard and South Otsego Avenue trying to determine the need for a traffic signal. There were 13 accidents at the intersection last year, another eight this year.

Traffic on South Otsego Avenue is expected to increase by 21 to 34 percent over the next 20 years, with the first two phases of Otsego Place Mall scheduled to open by the end of 2002. At the earliest, assuming the city received grant money to build on its first application in 2003, it would be 2004 before construction improvements begin.

"I think our chances are very good to develop the Streetscape Improvement Plan," Duff said.

The federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 set aside 10 percent of each state's Surface Transportation Program for transportation enhancement activities. The Transportation Equity Act of 1998 continued this program program through the year 2003. Fiscal year projects in Michigan for 2001 total $37.2 million for 131 projects in 52 counties. Of that amount $25 million was federal money and $12.1 million was local or state matching funds.